I used to have a live, late night talkshow in Washington, DC, mostly at the DC Arts Center, with a few at Fort Fringe. In the fall of 2011, I mentioned the idea in passing to my friend, Topher Bellavia. He helped the idea take shape, and we raised money for our first few shows via Kickstarter.

Local comedians Mikael Johnson, Paul Laudiero, Reaves McElvin, Pat Riley, Michael Burgos, Jay Malsky, and Stephen Mann made up our original writers and performers. Taylor Durant was my fantastic cohost and Mickey Daguiso was my ivory ticklin' band leader. Rhonda Mendoza found the best talent in DC to be our guests and helped promote our show to new audiences. From there, we did 10 shows weekly, and then ran out of money. After some soul searching, we reformatted the show as a monthly project, with producer oversight from Jeff Hughes. stage direction from Lindsey Boyle, and technical direction from Darnell Henderson. We added a lot of great writers and performers along the way, including Jamal Newman, Jeff Ray, Nikki Stowers, Travis Larchuk, Jack Sossman, Sean Paul Ellis, Tony Lazzeroni (also our videographer), Dan Scolnic, Michael Mcfarland, Justus Hammond, Jason Walther, Matt Winterhalter, Audrey Mattaino, and Jeff Hughes.

We interviewed tons of incredibly talented DC-area locals, including Matt Sesow, Dana Ellyn, Born I Music, B. Stanley, Frank Warren, Vijai Nathan, Shawn Westfall, and Akilah Green. We had local musicians like Black Masala, Paperhaus and Bearshark. We did 20-something episodes. Below are clips and a few full episodes.

At the time, the show felt like my only way to express my need to perform. Today, I still express that need in a different way through painting.